Internship Recruiting: The Value of HSM

Recruiting is no joke! You can go from periods of anxiety, to depression, to desperation, to elation – sometimes all in the same week. Depending on whether you caught me on crest or trough of this emotional journey, you would have got some very different responses from me on the value of HSM in recruiting. Now that it is over for me for the summer, I can take a step back and give some honest reflections on that topic. Here goes:

Networking

HSM at Fuqua has fantastic alumni in the healthcare industry. As one of (if not the) biggest healthcare MBA program around, this is perhaps to be expected. However, it really dawns on you throughout the process: just about every healthcare company I looked at had a strong and/or growing Fuqua network. This certainly helped in getting to really know the firm and making a decision on if it was the right place for me. HSM seminars and healthcare club sessions also helped give great perspective on different sub-segments and functions to help me figure out what I was most interested in. In that regard, it was a fantastic experience.

Did I get frustrated at times because I had to be in class on Wednesdays and do some extra work that perhaps took away from recruiting time? Yes. Absolutely. However, if I do a cost/benefit now, the fact remains that the benefits above so far outweigh the time cost – and then there is the fact that it helps whip your multi-tasking and organizational skills into shape.

Interview Process

Interviews come down to you. HSM helped as stated above – and maybe even by merely being in the program I earned some healthcare credibility that factored in my getting the interview (but then again just about every other student invited to interview for healthcare companies is in HSM). But now it was all on my experiences and skills. I did have to do some healthcare cases, and here specific knowledge on the US healthcare system from HSM bootcamp was invaluable. The process started from early-January for me – as I also did some consulting recruiting – while the healthcare companies were on campus from mid-end of January.

What was perhaps more interesting than on-campus interviews were the off-campus second rounds, where I got to meet candidates from other business schools. For the healthcare companies that I interviewed with, it was great to see that Duke always had a good representation of candidates and that we were one of the preferred school for many of these firms. This means that the Fuqua network in the healthcare industry will continue to expand beyond rivalry, and I look forward to being part of that network in the future!